Mason lowered himself to rest his forehead on the wall. Why had he agreed to the fosterage in the first place?
No, he knew the answer, and it was a good one. Fletcher needed wards. Riordan had them. And he had a kid Fletcher’s age.
Mason couldn’t trust his own motives here. He missed the kid so badly that he’d do anything to get him back. Anything . . . but endanger him. Mason breathed in. Let it out slowly.
He should take this up with Riordan first. If Fletcher could be safe at Webb House, could have a good life, then he should stay there, or all of this was for nothing.
Mason queued up his contact list on his phone to search for Riordan, but a call came up first on the screen. Jack Bastian.
He almost didn’t take it for fear that a Lure was right then, at that moment, about to touch Fletcher. But he picked up the angel’s call anyway.
“Yeah?” As in, cut to the chase.
Jack obliged. “There’s been another death. Plague. And it’s a tricky one. Blake House.”
“I’m sorry, what?” He didn’t catch the name.
“Blake,” the angel said.
“The Lures?” Mason’s brain wasn’t working. Fletcher had just texted him about the Lures. It had been Fletcher, hadn’t it?
Mason checked his text log while Jack kept talking.
Yes. The text had come from Special Agent Taco Sauce, aka Fletcher. The Lures are on the move.
What the fuck did that mean? And would it have killed Fletcher to do without the spy crap for one minute? Did he know what he was doing to his father?
Jack kept talking, but Mason sent a text back to the kid. Explain, please. Right now.
He lifted the phone back to his ear. Interrupted. “I didn’t catch any of that. I was distracted.”
A pause from Jack. “Is something wrong?”
“I hope not.” Mason squeezed the back of his neck to stop the tension from pounding in his head. “I might have to go in a sec. Can you bullet-point it for me?”
“Okay. Lorelei Blake has died of the mage plague. Takum Blake is demanding that the Council treat his loss the same as they are treating every other House’s.”
Mason checked for a text. Nothing. Fletcher was a handful, but he usually minded him. A week in another household did not undo eight years of semi-good behavior.
His jaw was tensing up. How did Fletcher even know about the Lures? Mason had never discussed them. What was he learning over there?
“Kaye is right now asking if Cari will go to Blake House as she did Vauclain and investigate the death on behalf of the Council. Regardless of Kaye’s history with Lorelei, as High Seat, Kaye can’t pick and choose which Houses she will serve and which she won’t.”
Mason already knew Cari’s answer. “Cari will say yes so that she can find out who killed her father.”
The Lures are on the move.
This wasn’t a coincidence. This was a warning. From his eight-year-old son, who was most likely, almost certainly, still safe inside Webb’s wards. He’d just heard or seen something to do with plague, their investigation of it, and the Blakes.
His kid was on to something.
“What’s the matter, Mason?” Jack had his tired angel on, and he was too far away to read Mason’s mind.
“I think the Blakes will try to overcome Cari.”
Otherwise, how could Fletcher possibly know that a Blake had fallen victim to the mage plague, and that it would have anything to do with his father? That he would need a warning?
“And you know this how?”
Mason wasn’t quite ready to condemn Webb without thinking about the repercussions for Fletcher’s safety. “Instinct.”
“Well, have your instincts keep Kaye informed. Call me back when you work out the details with Cari.”
The line went dead, but Mason was still working. The only explanation he could figure was that Webb and Blake were somehow connected, and Fletcher had found out about it. And Webb had already demonstrated an interest in DolanCo’s work. Which Fletcher would only be able to discover if he were snooping where he shouldn’t.
Webb and Blake were colluding.
This was a trap for Cari. A wild gamble for Webb via Blake to control the great Dolan House.
Mason texted the kid back: Nevermind. I get it.
He wasn’t going to discourage future behavior via text. Their next call, however, would be very serious. The whole point of Fletcher being at Webb’s was that his son would be safe. And meddling in Riordan’s business would do the opposite.
The Lures are on the move.
Fletcher sure knew how to age his father. The kid meant it as a warning, and Mason would take it as such. The Lures were going to use their grief to their advantage and touch Cari. Webb had at the very least encouraged them to try.
But none of them knew what they were up against. Cari Dolan was suddenly capable of some very unexpected things. Even with that deranged angel on the loose, Mason’s money was on the princess.
Xavier had walked the earth for thousands of years. He’d encountered other angels thousands of times. If he didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want to be found, he could remove himself from their minds.
Except perhaps from the rare angels who were as old as he.
“I know you’re here, friend.” Laurence didn’t bother to stalk. He stood in the middle of the road, basked in streetlight. A dare.
Xavier wasn’t young or foolish enough to take it.
Discovery outside of Vauclain House meant that he’d had to flee rather than pursue and kill Cari Dolan. This wasted time could cost the war. Was this the moment that Shadow overtook Order?
“You’ve lost your way,” Xavier said. He didn’t have time to be educating someone who should know better; they both should be hunting the Dolan. What was she doing? Where was she? “Order and Shadow do not belong together.”
He’d have to find Mason Stray. Trace him and he’d find the woman, though it would be more difficult now that Mason had learned, probably had been instructed, to conceal his soul.
“The Earth is dying.” Laurence faced into the darkness. “She needs Shadow again.”
“Shadow is death! You’ve forgotten.”
Laurence smiled to the night. “I haven’t forgotten you.”
Cari watched Mason check his phone for a text for the tenth time in the last half hour. “It’s not safe to text and drive.”
A helicopter had taken them from the Dolan property—first time she’d released the wards upward, to the sky—to New Haven, where a car had been waiting. An old Camaro, typical of Mason, but she understood his reasoning a little better now. Apparently there had been three other landing sites and cars waiting, the choice made only after they were in the air. These were the precautions to avoid the notice of the rogue angel.
Mason put his phone back on his lap, looking grim. “Sorry. I’m waiting for a message from Fletcher.”
So that’s what it was, or who. His son was on his mind. The worry was evident in the set of Mason’s jaw and the long silences during their journey.
“Was he exposed?” The immediate concern of every mage these days.
Mason looked over, surprised. “No. Not since the May Fair, anyway. It’s just the transition has been a little hard on him. He should be fine.”
Cari didn’t like the phrasing “should be,” but it wasn’t her place to ask more. She wanted to though—Mason as a father captured her attention in strange ways. She wondered what he was like with Fletcher—she had felt echoes of it in how he’d treated her and wanted to see the real thing with her own eyes. Giving up his son had to have been difficult. Something about Mason was stricken, and it made her hurt, too.